Death and photocopiers.(New and Selected Poems)(Book review)

New and Selected Poems, by Dennis O'Driscoll; Anvil, 2004, $39.95.

DENNIS O'DRISCOLL encountered death early in his life. The details are not supplied in the biographical note to this fine new volume, but they quickly emerge from the early poems: a brother "called twice from the classroom for grim news", a sister

 
   too young to visit our mother's cancer ward 
   though old enough to know the worst. 
   Then growing up to watch our father's graph 
   decline 

and the poet's home becoming "an orphanage". A later poem, "Years After", begins:

 
   And yet we managed fine. 
   We missed your baking for a time. 
   And yet were we not better off 
   without cream-hearted sponge cakes, 
   flaky, rhubarb-oozing pies? 

That "And yet" painfully repeats itself throughout the poem. O'Driscoll's poetry is anything but maudlin; rather, there is a dry stoicism, a constant awareness of "and yet". "Middle-Class Blues" begins like a fairytale:

 
   He has everything. 
   A beautiful young wife. 
   A comfortable home. 
   A secure job ...